If I Should Not Return: 1 in Fare Thee Well series
by Neftzer
Summary: In which a Sister puts the Wolf on the track of a ghost, and the Raven must take the fall for a Highlander,  with the assistance of a Really Old Guy.  Starring Amanda, Methos, Nick Wolfe, an OC, and another surprising series regular, set in Paris.


Note: This story was completed in May 1999. It is to take place as follows:  
_Highlander_: post-Avatar  
_The Raven_: pre-The Ex-Files  
My own fanfiction: post-On A Clear Day You Can Live Forever, (though you needn't have read this)  
Further explanations and disclaimers may be found at the end.

* * *

If I Should Not Return: One in the Fare Thee Well Series

_in which a Sister puts the Wolf on the track of a ghost,  
and the Raven must take the fall for a Highlander  
(with the assistance of a Really Old Guy)_

_Fare thee well, my own true love.  
Farewell for awhile, I'm going away.  
But I'll be back, though I go ten-thousand miles.  
Ten-thousand miles, my own true love_

Ten-thousand miles or more.  
The rocks may melt,  
And the seas may burn,  
If I should not return. ****

Paris, France - The day was still early when Nick Wolfe made his way back down the Champs-Elysees with the morning's brioche, hot from Fouquet's. He wasn't sure when he'd settle into this Franco-fare. Breakfast to him still seemed best when it came with a steak swimming in red-eye gravy, eggs and home fries. He found himself thinking of the Waffle Steak again, and how impossible it was for him to imagine anything as comforting to a police detective as their big yellow sign, reminding you that no matter what happened, they'd be open for you twenty-four seven. He and Claudia had loved that, eaten themselves near sick on some occasions, too tired from a night's work to notice when their full stomachs were begging them to stop, so attuned had they been to their exhaustion. Nick sighed.

He turned onto the rue Pierre Charron and changed his thoughts to cursing at Amanda for agreeing to set up shop in the Huit Arrondissement, holy ground or not, with its expensive restaurants and high fashions at every turn. It was like her though, something she would enjoy. Enjoy so much that she might not even notice its more unpleasant sides. Like having to walk rather far for your breakfast.

Of course she'd never notice that if he kept bringing it to her, like he was doing today.

He thanked the powers that be that the streets were deserted except for the occasional worker, setting up for tonight's wildness, just as they had the night before. Nick imagined that he was able to recognize some of their faces now, as they came out into the sunrise to let out their pets from the night, tend to the prior day's garbage, or just step out to breathe some fresh air. It was at times like this that he thought maybe, just maybe, he might be on the path to getting used to his new life.

__

Nick Wolfe, he thought, _Paris Cop_. Sounded like a bad sitcom. Where the hero wears his shirt open, and maybe plugs a cheap cologne named for the show during station breaks. _Paris Cop_. He thought of a slogan: _It's arresting_.

But then comparing his life to a bad TV show was not as far fetched as it might once have been before this immortal stuff. Swords and sorcery. Well, he guessed he was still waiting for the sorcery. Rolling heads and lightning shows. An eternal struggle between good and evil, or at least good and better. But even though Nick had to admit his life had become this, he was not so sure how he fit in to the plot. What his character's motivations were, and how to play the scenes he was handed. Whether he was even under contract, or just an extra, waiting for his second in the spotlight.

__

Bad thoughts, Nicky, he said to himself. _Not even sure if you've got the starring role in your own life? That's one to think about._

When he talked to himself, he often found he used his dad's name for him. That name he'd fought so hard in high school to lose. And here he was, well past that time, still addressing things to himself as Nicky. That was another one to think over.

But his internal dialogue was brought to a stop at the entrance to the club. A young woman stood on the street, looking into the third and fourth story windows as though she expected to see someone familiar through their large panes.

Nick usually took the back way in to avoid, well, to avoid whatever, depending. The back door got him to the upstairs more quickly than going through the club entrance. But in typical Nick Wolfe style, he thought maybe this girl could use his help. And if not, the detective in him counseled, at least he'd find out who was hanging around.

She stood, he guessed, at about five four-five five, longer of leg than torso, although her style of dress didn't do a lot to let you in on that. She was in a pair of jeans that had seen better days. They were men's, beaten with use to a white-blue, stacked at the cuffs and riding low on her hips without a belt. Over those hung a black leather jacket, scuffed with wear. This was also a man's.

She held some papers in her hand and stood at the edge of the curb next to a blue duffel, airport routing tags attached, as though a cab had just put her out and she had yet to pay the fare. But there was no cab in sight.

Walking toward her, Nick spoke, "Pardon mademoiselle, pouvais-je aidez vous?"

She turned away from the window then, and he saw her face full-on, turned up nose, brown eyes that slanted just a little, three tiny freckles across her left cheekbone, and blonde hair, almost banana yellow in the light, cropped short, but unlike Amanda's buzzy cut, haphazard and tufty.

She caught him inspecting her hair and ran a bashful hand through it, the way someone does to remind themselves they've really cut it off.

"I don't speak French," she said, looking down and away.

He realized that to get this far from the airport, which was where he was assuming she had come from, she probably knew by now that she was speaking more to herself than to others with such a remark. She wandered back to her bag after an apologetic smile his way.

"Don't speak French?" Nick asked, companionably. "Neither do I, much."

The change in her face was immediate. Relief.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came over to me," she said, walking his way again. "I'm looking for this address," she extended a piece of paper to him. "For a man named Nick Wolfe."

Sanctuary's address was scrawled in Bert Myers' ever-changing handwriting on the back of his card, and any thoughts Nick had as to her being a less-than-benevolent visitor evaporated. Busy-work clients on the side sometimes came to him this way via Myers, especially if things were going as slowly as they had been lately.

"I think I can help you," he said, and smiled. "I'm Nick Wolfe."

He gestured with the brioche to the rear entrance, and grabbed her duffel before she could get to it. Hoisting it over his shoulder, they went upstairs to his apartment.

When they were settled in the corner of his loft that held his personal computer and desk, he began.

"Please don't think this is rude on my part, but knowing the kind of business Mr. Myers and I are in, could I please see some ID? Your passport, maybe?"

She handed him the blue-covered passport of a United States Citizen from within her coat, and after smiling, he took it.

"You'll probably need this too," offering a North Dakota driver's license. "They're under different names," she explained.

"This might take some time," he offered, "depending on how busy the lines are. Can I get you something to drink while we wait? Juice? Coffee?"

"No, thank you," she declined. "But could I possibly use your..."

"Yes, of course," Nick apologized, "forgive my lapse in hospitality, it's just down the hall on the left."

He hoped Amanda wasn't hogging it again like she often did of a morning, taking those long bubble baths, and when he knocked on the door needing in, teasing him by inviting him to go ahead and help himself while she reclined in the tub like a brazen Cleopatra.

As if he would, or could even. That woman was infuriating. For the thousandth time he began laying tentative plans for a second bathroom.

He keyed in the name on the passport, and other important information and sent it along to the various places that Myers paid to check out such things. While she was gone, he turned the tiny blue booklet over in his hands and examined it more closely.

It was so new the binding didn't have enough give in it yet to open easily. He worked it back and forth for a second. Issued out of Chicago only two months ago. Place of birth Missoula, Montana; 2 February 74. _Caitlin Michelle Richards_. In the photo she looked a little surprised, her eyebrows raised as if to ask, _have you taken the shot yet_? On the front cover was the sticker for a travel agent in Chicago. The inside held a single stamp giving her entry into Paris, only just this morning.

His computer screen came to life, telling him the passport search had come up with nothing untoward. He grabbed for the Driver's License. Now this was interesting. He added the other name listed here to the information search, _Sister Mary George_, and the North Dakota address. The other stats listed matched up with the passport's as best he could see. The photo was taken from one of those newer computer cameras, and the resolution was poor, making the face look very different from the one on the passport without the veil. But looking closer, he had to agree that the two pictures were of the same woman.

Out of curiosity, he looked at the vitals listed. _Five foot four. One-hundred and seventeen pounds. Eyes brown. Hair blonde_. The license was expired by almost a year. He wondered if she'd been driving with it that way, taking chances.

She returned, holding the hand towel from the bathroom, dabbing at her face. "I hope you don't mind," she said, gesturing with it. "Long flight."

"Don't worry about it," Nick said. "You, uh, didn't happen to see anybody in the hall, did you?"

She shook her head.

"Okay, well," he wondered where Amanda had gone, and remembered the brioche sitting out on his bar. His breakfast.

"If you'll tell me which of these names you go by now," he said, and saw the faint smile of amusement begin on her face. "I'll invite you to breakfast while we talk about why you're here."

"Cat," she said, "you can call me Cat."

"So what happened to Sister Mary George?" he asked companionably as they walked over to the kitchen.

"Well, I was a Benedictine sister," she said succinctly, "and now I'm not."

He waited for more, busying himself with plates and glasses, a knife to cut the bread. Cat noticed his silence and offered a bit more, twisting slightly on her stool.

"Things didn't work out."

"A guy?" he asked, immediately sorry he'd said it.

"Among other things," she answered honestly, toying with the glass he'd given her. Her candor surprised him. He was not used to clients being forthright. Then again, he'd never had a nun-ex-nun for a client.

"Also," she continued, and Nick realized she had momentarily forgotten he was there, "I got very sick, although that was after." A smile of melancholy passed over her face, and looking at Nick now, fully aware of being in his kitchen, she said, in the tone of someone who has spent time working such an idea out, "sometimes you have to choose which world you are going to live in."

A small silence passed with Nick not knowing what to say, and then realizing that nothing was needed. He thought a moment about his life bridging two worlds, still not convinced they were entirely separate. _Not the best time to have an introspective moment, Nicky_.

Leaning his hands onto the counter, he said, "Why don't I make us something a little more substantial while we talk? Maybe some steak and eggs?"

Cat gladly agreed.

* * *

Amanda dropped by Nick's loft later that morning looking for him. His door was open, but once inside she didn't see him around. A quick peek out into the hall showed her he was in the bathroom, and she heard the shower pipes screaming.

She decided to wait. She loved to give Nick a good scare right when he got out of the shower. It got her blood pumping in a way only a few things could. She had gone out early that morning before breakfast and so she wandered over to his kitchenette to see what he might have laying around that she could munch on. A pile of dishes lay in the sink to be scrubbed, and from the looks of them, Nick had not only treated himself to steak this morning, he had also treated a guest. _Suspicious,_ she thought. Picking up one of the glasses, she held it to the light, where a lip-imprint was easy to see, as the drinker had been wearing lightly colored lip balm. _Aha_.

Walking over the room, contenting herself looking for other clues, she spied the bathroom hand towel laying on the leather chair across from Nick's desk. Nick might be a man, but untidiness was not among his character flaws. Inspecting closer, she was able to see a blonde hair, about three inches long. The strand was stiffened, from either hairspray or gel. _Possibly,_ she thought_, from one of those new pomades_.

All signs seemed to be pointing to a lady visitor, and to quell what she found to be an unpleasant feeling, she went to look at Nick's desk, sure it had been a client, although a small voice in the back of her head asked if she could recall the last time Nick had a client over, cooked them breakfast and offered them a towel, leading him to showering just before noon. She gave a _huhm_ that she reserved for shaking off ideas that didn't appeal to her.

Tabbing around on the computer allowed her to see some of the information Nick had been browsing through, INTERPOL and other criminal databases, when a crumpled up business card caught her eye. She recognized it as one of Myers'. Ugly beyond belief. Between her first and second fingers she tapped it impatiently against the desk, waiting for Nick to come in, but once distracted from the screen and looking down, she saw another scrap of paper, in a woman's handwriting she didn't recognize, spelling out the name _Duncan MacCloud MacLeod._ _Antiques dealer, _it read, _Paris, Seacouver, Tessa Noel._ Each word on its own line, like a checklist being used to write a biography. Looking no further, she grabbed the paper, and marched into the bathroom, catching Nick just as he was slinging a towel around his waist.

"Manda!" he said, clearly exasperated, one foot still in the shower.

The room was thick with steam, and muggy to boot.

"Nick, what's going on?" she demanded.

"Excuse me?" he asked, his eyebrows all but leaping off his face. "You break in on me while I'm in the shower, like I've gone and beat up your little brother, and you have the nerve to demand what's going on? Well I guess I can throw that one right back at you-_Manda, what's going on?_" His voice was quite loud, and echoed off the shower walls. He was clenching his jaw.

Her response was calmly spoken, but staccato. "Well I don't know Nick, I come home this morning, only to feel a Buzz from a passing car, but after a moment I think, well, you know that's all it was." She was pacing the room now, her heels punctuating her speech across the tiled floor. "Just a passing car. _Que l'enfer_, nothing to worry about. Paris is a big city. A-big-cit-y, Nick." She took a deep breath and began again, "But then a come up here looking for you and I find this on your desk." She looked down to the paper in her hand. "Who was here, Nick? Who? What does she want?" He was staring at her with a look that said, _I am too mad to speak to you right now_, but she pushed anyway. "What is going on?"

"Amanda," Nick said, leaning against the radiator, hoping that the heat would dry him since he wasn't being given a chance to towel off. He took a breath and crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to calm down, but that didn't last long once he felt his towel slipping with each exhale.

"It's not what you think," he began, making a grab for the towel's wrap. "Just a client Myers sent over to me. She's looking for some guy. Your basic private investigator stuff." The tone of his voice showed how much he dismissed Amanda's agitation as unnecessary. "I think maybe he broke her heart or something."

"And that guy's name," she asked, waving the paper at him, "is Duncan MacLeod?"

"Where did you get that?" His anger was coming to the top again.

"Is it Duncan MacLeod?" she demanded, the paper closer to his face. Amanda was coloring up unnaturally, and Nick couldn't decide if it was from the shower's heat or the piece of paper. The piece of paper she held as though it would bite her, but held firmly, nonetheless.

"Yeah, so?"

"So Duncan MacLeod is a friend of mine." She took another breath in the steamy air, "and he's an immortal. One of the good guys. _The_ good guy." She put her hand to her forehead, trying to think in this stuffy atmosphere.

"So you're saying this girl's using me to track down someone so she can get a shot at his head?"

"Stranger things have happened," she replied, hand on her hip. She shook her head. "Where is she now?"

"She didn't have a place to stay, so I sent her over to see Liam."

A pause, and gurgle as the shower de-pressurized and let go its hold on the water left in its pipes.

"Liam," both said at once, exchanging a glance of fear for their friend. What if he had gone to the curb to greet her at the taxi?

A quick look at Nick's toweled attire made the decision about who would go.

"Get dressed, Nick. I'll go see after Liam and meet this girl." She was to the stairs, calling over her shoulder now. "You find MacLeod. He owns a barge on the Seine, across from Notre Dame." He heard the sound of her sword being sheathed, imagined her checking on it before grabbing her coat. "If you can't manage that, call Joe Dawson. Tell him everything."

"Joe Dawson?" Nick shot over railing after her, but it was too late, she was out the door, sword and all.

Nick had dispensed with drying himself off, and after the briefest moment at his computer, looking to find a phone number for this MacLeod-something he'd been working on anyway-his terminal quickly told him his efforts had been fruitless. Any numbers that might be available under that name were not for public consumption.

After about fifteen minutes, he got several people on the phone who could talk to him about some of the barges on the Seine, and was mildly successful_._

Oui, Monsieur MacLeod did have a barge near Notre Dame, here was the number. He grabbed his notes, and still at a loss as to how to find Joe Dawson on the fly, or how to find him at all, grabbed the Metro to line number seven.

* * *

Nick found the barge easily enough, docked where the man had told him it would be. He took a moment to reflect on why anyone would want to live on a boat. He imagined it would be awfully cold in the winter, although he supposed you couldn't beat it for originality, or for that matter, the view, which was spectacular. Notre Dame with its gorgeous architecture in the background. And he did have to admit that for an immortal the appeal of a moveable home had to be taken into consideration.

He allowed himself one more thought about this MacLeod and what sort of acquaintanceship he and Amanda had, how long they had known each other. He had thought about little else on his trip over, undistracted by the noise and people surrounding him on the Metro. He had never seen her as alarmed as she had looked back there. Immortals came after each other's heads ad infinitum. Amanda had never shown much interest in the Game, unless of course her own head had been on the line.

Could be that this guy was a student of hers. She'd never mentioned him, of course, but that didn't mean much. _Maybe this guy was pretty young_, Nick thought, _and she's just worried about him getting in over his head. Over his head. Good one, Nicky._

The thing that gave him almost greater pause was the fact that Cat had seemed entirely unthreatening to him. Nick thought himself as good a judge of character as the next guy, maybe even better, and he'd picked up nothing coming off her, except what she had told him. That she was looking for someone and she had a list of people she would like to talk to about his whereabouts. The guy that had broken her heart, he supposed. She hadn't come out directly and said as much, but he drew in the lines.

After this guy had left her behind, in Chicago, at the mission where she had been living, she had gotten sick. Cancer- expected to be terminal-and so she had had to return home to North Dakota, where she got treatment and was in and out of hospitals for almost two years.

She had laughed cynically at the memory, and told him being laid up had kept her from being able to do a very thorough search. And now she was in Paris, to pick up the trail.

Hardly sounded like the best cover to Nick, but he had to admit that when it came to immortal motivations, Amanda outranked him by quite a few centuries.

He caught himself standing on one side of what he supposed was called the gangplank, and wondering how to do this. Was it okay to walk on deck, then look for a door and knock? Or did you stand here and shout for permission to come aboard? _Damn etiquette_, he thought, and marched on, his determination causing the walkway to shiver under his boots.

"MacLeod," he shouted out over the water, fully aware that Immortals did not take well to being sneaked up on. "MacLeod!" He felt foolish, stomping onto the boat home of someone he didn't know and trying to infuse them with a sense of danger and desperation he didn't feel. What if this guy wouldn't listen? Nick found the idea hard to believe himself, people living forever, running around taking heads. It seemed directly at odds with everything around him, the beautiful spring afternoon, the river's sounds, the birds...Paris. He felt extremely absurd. This stuff was a lot easier to sell to himself at night in grungy warehouses.

Impatiently, he found the door, and knocked.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

He was just about to give up and go on to Liam's church, when someone answered. The door pulled in several inches and a skeptical eye and prominent nose peeked around the corner.

"Pierson?" Nick asked, incredulously. Standing in front of him was Adam Pierson, self-proclaimed nephew of Lucy Becker. They had met back in Torago. Now here he was in Paris, on Duncan MacLeod's barge, holding a mug of coffee and the London Times.

"Yes," Pierson answered, as though he had been expecting Nick, though his face showed perhaps a trace of humor.

"I'm looking for Duncan MacLeod,' Nick began, none-too-fondly remembering his and Pierson's last meeting at Amanda's apartment, where he had also unexpectedly found Pierson.

"And imagine your shock at finding me instead." He smiled. "If I didn't have an inalienable faith in humanity, I'd think you were following me. One of those, what is it again? Yes, Watchers." He affected an inquiring look.

"Is MacLeod here?" Nick ignored his remark and strained to see beyond Pierson's shoulder into the boat.

"Actually, no. I'm watching the barge for him." Pierson consulted the amount of coffee left in his mug, as though it might be able to supply some answers. "He's gone on holiday."

"And let me guess," asked Nick, defeat setting in. "If I needed to get in touch with Joe Dawson, I'd find out he's gone with him?"

"Yes, that's right. You're getting much better on the fly, you know." Pierson toasted Nick with his mug.

"Nice to know that you approve."

With that quip, their conversation had come to a standstill. Uncomfortable, Nick shifted on his feet.

"Would you, ah, like to come in? Have a coffee?" Pierson began to move aside, opening the door further.

"No, thanks, I gotta catch up with Amanda." Nick looked off to the side, beyond the barge, thinking of Liam and the potential trouble he had sent his way. He frowned, as though the sun were in his eyes.

The continuing silence brought his mind and eyes back to the present. He was pretty sure Pierson didn't like him, and was surprised that he'd been invited in. The time they had spent together in Torago, at Amanda's urging, had hardly forged a bond between them, except perhaps to make each aware of how little they envied the other's company. _Maybe the guy's manners had just caught up with him._

"What's Amanda want with sending you after MacLeod?" Pierson asked like a nosy neighbor, taking a final drink from his mug. "Can't find herself a date for this weekend?"

"No." Nick wondered how much he should be telling Pierson, but then realized that he didn't know enough about what was going on to even judge, so he told him anyway. About Cat, about Amanda finding MacLeod's name on his desk, and the little about Cat's story that even Amanda didn't know.

"You're not convinced the girl is after his head, are you?"

"Well," began Nick, "I've judged my fair share of people, and she didn't seem out for vengeance. Wasn't the type."

"Hmmm," Pierson prodded, "So this girl comes to you, with his name?"

"A list of names," Nick corrected.

"Fascinating technique." The eyebrow cocked again in curiosity. "Who else?"

"Amanda only found where she had written MacLeod's. Then Cat-that's her name, Cat,"

"Very original," Pierson interjected.

"Also gave me a couple others," continued Nick, taking a paper from inside his coat, and began reading, "_Tessa Noel, Sculptor schooled at the Sorbonne. Deceased. Joe's, Blues Bar, Seacouver. Anne Lindsay, MD_, and then just this one word: _Methos_. Now I don't know if that one's somebody's name or a company. Kinda sounds like a band."

"It would seem that whoever they are they've done their research pretty well." Pierson's face had begun to pale toward the end of the list. Nick had been looking down, reading, and he had not noticed.

"Wait," Nick had a flash of memory. "Methos. Wasn't that the name of the guy you were researching? Any idea where he might be?"

"On his way out of town if he's smart," came the indifferent reply. Pierson prepared to take a step back from the doorway.

Nick began to move forward, anticipating another invitation in to discuss things.

"So, you know Amanda and you know Duncan MacLeod. This stuff mean anything to you?" Nick asked, waving the paper slightly, his eyes narrowing.

"Nope," said Pierson, no longer moving aside. "Not a thing. If you'll excuse me though, I believe I may have forgotten an appointment this morning." And with that, Nick found the door shut solidly in his face.

He knocked again. A moment. Pierson re-opened the door.

"You still here?" he asked.

"Don't you even have a number where I can call MacLeod or maybe Dawson?"

Pierson stood and feigned thought for a moment. "No, sorry." And closed the door, latching the lock with the sound of the metal tumblers falling into place.

Once again Nick Wolfe found himself alone on the deck of the barge. He thought of trying again, but remembered Amanda and Liam and Cat, and decided he didn't have any more time to waste on uncooperative nephews. If Joe Dawson and this MacLeod were out of Paris for the time being, well, all the better for them.

* * *

Amanda had rushed over to Liam's church, thanking whatever powers, in her own ambiguous spirituality that Liam was at least sequestered on holy ground.

The spine-shiver of a Buzz met her at the doors, and she was again thankful, assuming that it was Liam's, and not this girl's.

Liam turned to greet her in the nave. He wore his customary leather jacket against the chill in the stone church and he turned from the altar, where he had been arranging things.

"Amanda," he spoke companionably, "I was expecting you sometime today."

"Liam," she began, earnestly, in her most persuasive voice. "I am so sorry. This would never have happened if Nick had known."

"I'm sure," he responded. "But it's worse than you think."

"I know, I know, she's trying for Duncan's head."

"MacLeod?" he asked, and shrugged. "That's ambitious. But I'm afraid, it's even worse than that."

Amanda experienced a momentary panic. "You didn't tell her where to find him?"

"No, no," Liam pushed his hands into his pockets, and looked down at his feet, rocking back on his heels, taking the perfect beat like any good vaudevillian. "She's gone to the corner druggist for aspirin."

"Aspirin?" Amanda could not see the comic lift to his eyebrows.

"She's complaining of a terrible headache." He looked up.

Amanda's eyes narrowed. "A headache. But,"

"I know."

"So what you're saying is that she doesn't have any idea about what she is?"

"What I'm saying, Amanda, is that at the least that's the impression she's trying to give."

"Where did you put her up?" Amanda asked, seemingly changing topic and scouring the surroundings for clues.

"Well, I've got some cells in the older part of the building, fitted with beds and electric. She didn't seem to mind the sparseness, so I let her have one of those."

"Just down this hall?" asked Amanda, gesturing with her glasses.

"Amanda," Liam began, "what are you thinking?" He raised an eyebrow in question.

"You can give me the key or not, Liam, you know I don't need it."

Liam sighed. "Come along then," he said, giving in.

"Are you really going to help me out?" Amanda asked, surprised at his willingness for this bit of larceny.

"No," he said, diplomatically. "I'm coming along to make sure that you only go through her bags, and that you don't take anything." He held out one hand in invitation, as though clearing the air for their journey.

"Fair enough," Amanda conceded, realistically. "Let's get to it, then."

* * *

Nick had braved some of the afternoon traffic on the Metro on his way back from MacLeod's barge, and it reminded him that he had yet to eat lunch, but his worry over Liam and Amanda kept his empty stomach from getting too much in the way. Also, his worry for Cat.

As far as he could see, something wasn't right with this picture. If she really was hunting down this MacLeod guy, well, it hadn't seemed that way to him back at the office. She had only come across as sad-not vengeful. If he hadn't had Amanda's knowledge to go on, he really would believe that Cat was simply a girl who'd been burnt in love, and was trying to hook back up with her boyfriend. Maybe after she'd left her order. He wondered if that's what they'd quarreled about.

Hoping to get a clearer picture, Nick had called Myers in Sarajevo shortly after leaving the barge. Myers had told him the girl was a "write-off" case. Something he was doing as a favor to someone else who had helped him out in the past. He had never met Cat, but apparently Cat's ex-Mother Superior in North Dakota had not always been cloistered from the world. Myers had mumbled something about East Germany in the late eighties. So that lead hadn't gotten Nick anywhere, no closer to Cat's possibly ulterior motive or any further clue to her past, and whether or not it stretched across several hundred years.

He supposed a nun could live a long time as an immortal. No one able to fight you, no need to carry a sword, as long as you never left the abbey. Still, it seemed kind of lonely. It made sense that if she had been at this hundreds of years she might easily have fallen hard for a half-decent guy. That is, if any of her story could be trusted. Maybe it was all so much bunk.

Nick was on the tree-lined walk headed to Liam's front doors when he heard his name.

"Nick Wolfe!" Cat called, just a few steps behind him. She was clutching a small paper sack, the kind his mother had made his lunch in as a child.

He turned to say hello, and caught her just in time. She was pitching forward into him, her hand searching for his arm to support herself.

"You okay?" he asked, perplexed. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was drunk.

"It's just," she spoke with difficulty, still bent in half at the waist, looking up at him through her bangs. "My head, my stomach. I haven't been sick in so long."

Swaying slightly, she turned to the side, and with a retching heave, left her breakfast on some of Liam's prize roses.

She tried to say something, probably to excuse herself, but Nick had his handkerchief out, extending it to her.

"Here you go," he said, holding her forehead while she gagged a few more times.

"Thank you," she said, looking down, still woozily, to her shirt to see if any damage had been done.

When some time had passed, he asked if she was feeling better, confused as all get out over how it was possible for an immortal to get sick. If it was possible.

She sat heavily on a stone half-wall, letting her head hang between her knees.

Nick stood, his posture uncertain. His instincts said trust the girl. His cop-sense said trust the girl. Only Amanda said don't trust the girl. He felt it was a pretty even balance, and he didn't know how to choose.

__

At least, he realized, _you have the opportunity now to get her away from Liam._

"Could you, I mean," her voice was still hoarse, "it was very nice of you to find me this place to stay, but..."

"You know what," Nick said, "maybe it would be best if you came back to the office with me, and we found you somewhere else-you know, after you're feeling better."

He took her by the arm, and walked to the curb, waving for a taxi. "I'll call Father Liam and have him send your bags back over."

"Thank you," she said again, stepping into the taxi, "I'm feeling a little better already."

* * *

Liam had not exaggerated the amenity-less cell Cat had agreed to use. It was bare; a bed, the sheets folded neatly on top, waiting to be made, a wooden bedside table, and a naked lightbulb in the ceiling's socket. Laying in a violent splash of color, also on the bed, was the blue duffel.

"Goodness, Liam," Amanda exclaimed over the Spartan atmosphere, "you sure know how to show a girl a good time."

Liam ignored the comment, and Amanda easily unzipped the duffel, after inspecting the airport and luggage tags.

"_Caitlin Richards_ ring any bells for you?"

"Yeah, sure," said Liam, standing at the edge of the bed. Amanda looked up. "Like when she introduced herself to me this morning."

"Very funny."

The duffel did not have much to show in the way of contents. A tube of Close-Up, new and still in the box, two more pairs of size six jeans-sales tags attached, a blue t-shirt and two blouses, a zippered toiletry bag, socks and underwear, a second pair of shoes and a simple yellow dress of silk shantung-off the rack-nothing that would get Cat past the doorman of any of Amanda's favorite restaurants, but an attractive dress nonetheless.

After emptying the bag, and patting down the seams to look for concealed items, Amanda sat on the bed, its layer of springs squeaking, to open the small pouch of what she suspected was soap, toothbrush, and maybe some feminine items. But the sag of the bed as she sat caught her attention, and giving Liam a suspicious eye, she leaned over, and put her hand into the darkness below the mattress, withdrawing a sword.

"The plot," she turned the sword over in the light, "indeed thickens."

It was a rather bare version of a claymore, designed with little thought to beauty or show quality, which is what gave it the startling elegance that it had.

"It's...really...something," Liam said, and the catch in his voice was not lost on Amanda, who also saw his hand flex, wanting to reach out for it.

"Would you like to hold it?" she asked, gesturing to him with the hilt.

"No. I-don't think I should," he said, firmer this time, with less of a quiver.

"Very well," she acquiesced, "have it your way." And she laid it across the bed, near to the end where Liam was standing, so that he could at least see it. She knew there had been a time when he was quite the sword enthusiast.

"That," she said to him, tearing into the bag, "is a sword for someone who means business. The balance is really good, and the grip..."

"Amanda," Liam said, fully aware that she was trying to push temptation into his path-in fact, already had.

She threw her hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, we'll look in the bag."

The travel pouch held most of the things Amanda had expected, but there was also an antique wooden rosary, the beads worn down and polished to a shine from the prayers it had heard. She laid that in front of her, arranging it respectfully, just as she had the sword. Just as she would with any beautiful thing.

Amanda came to a packet of photos, which she drew out, and looked at slowly in silence, then handed over to Liam, while she tried to form these pieces into one comprehensible whole. In her concentrated effort, she seemed to feel more acutely the coldness of the stone surrounding her.

"Amanda," he exclaimed. "These pictures." He gestured at her with a photo.

"MacLeod," she announced to Liam, holding a snapshot, clearly taken by someone they had known and trusted. Duncan and a blonde woman sitting on the couch in the barge, the woman dressed in a type of apron that turned into chaps. A moment caught when he had suddenly pulled her down on his lap. They were laughing.

"I know," he said, "and the woman?"

"Tessa Noel, she's dead now."

Liam turned over the photo and looked at the date stamp of when it had been developed.

"And what about this one?" He held up another snapshot. Amanda stood and took the stack from him, rattling off names as she flipped through the twelve or so photos.

"Joe Dawson, and Mike somebody-a bartender at Joe's, Anne Lindsay with her daughter Mary, just after she was born. Duncan, Duncan and Tessa. Tessa and Richie-my guess, right after the move back to Paris. Kenneth," her voice caught as she said that name. "And," she addressed the last three in her hand. "Me. Me with Duncan. Me with Duncan and Richie. And me."

She stuffed the pictures with disgust back into the packet, and began putting things back into the duffel, speaking as she replaced its contents.

"What could this be about, Liam? How did she manage to get all of these? Did she stake-out the place Duncan got his film developed? Because these aren't surveillance. They're not even professional. These are pictures of our lives. We took these of each other." She sent her eyes toward the ceiling in incredulity. "This girl has our memories."

"I don't know," Liam began, held up mid-sentence when both he and Amanda felt a Buzz. Amanda quickly re-sheathed the sword, rather regretfully, under the mattress, and they both looked about once more to see that all was as it had been when they arrived. Satisfied, they made their way out to the sanctuary, each planning to ask this girl some tough questions.

But Cat never came in. Instead, the sensation receded, and Liam's study phone rang with a call from Nick.

* * *

Amanda responded quickly to Nick's call, bringing along the blue duffel with her back to the club. So the girl had been sick just outside of the church.

__

Not unusual, she mused, early encounters with the Buzz often had interesting effects. Passing out, puking, crossed eyes, the shakes, the whole nine yards. Still, if this girl was what she claimed to be-whatever that was-and she was looking for MacLeod, with purely innocent intentions, why did she need to hire a security firm? Why wouldn't Mac have just told her where he was? Given her a phone number, an address?

With all these questions battling in her head, Amanda climbed the stairs up to Nick's loft to find some answers.

A Buzz met her long before the door was answered by Nick.

"Thanks," he said, taking the bag from her, and moving to the side so she could see the girl sitting on the couch, head in her hands.

Knowing she couldn't very well question someone who was on the verge of losing their lunch, Amanda spoke. "Take in a deep breath and hold it for a second. Let the feeling settle. Imagine it coming to rest just above your stomach. Now let that breath out slowly."

The tufted blonde head raised, a little at a time as the girl exhaled, and Amanda began to harden her heart once more toward the young immortal, knowing the job she had to do to protect MacLeod.

Cat's head came up just as she was speaking. "Thanks, how did you," she exclaimed, "Amanda!" a smile of hope crossing her face, lighting her eyes.

"You two know each other?" Nick asked Amanda, incredulous.

Amanda's mouth was open, her eyes suspicious, but she made no reply, nor did she move from her place close by the door. It was not impossible for the girl to have found out her name-after all-she had a collection of Duncan's private photos.

"No," Cat offered, "I mean, we've never been introduced, but, I've been looking for you. Looking for all of you."

"Wait a minute," Nick interjected, putting up his hand as if directing traffic. "Amanda's name wasn't on your list. Any of your lists."

"Lists?" said Amanda, speaking finally to Nick, "and just who else is she 'looking' for?"

Cat interrupted. "I didn't put Amanda's name down because I know she changes it so often, and I didn't know which one she was going by now."

Nick was amazed to see how altered Cat had become. The heavy weight, nausea and sadness that she'd been carrying around almost since she had walked in to his loft that morning had lifted, and she seemed to be content just to sit and look at Amanda. Who, he noticed, looked anything but comfortable with the attention.

"So you're looking for who? Me, MacLeod? Some of the other people on this list of yours?" Amanda asked, crossing her arms and putting one leg in front of the other.

"Well, actually I'm looking for Richie. Richie Ryan? My list is just the names of people I thought might be able to help me."

"Oh, God," said Amanda, the wind knocked out of her. "Those pictures, they're his. Richie. I should have known." She put a hand to her forehead as thoughts tumbled over themselves inside it. "So you _are_ here to kill MacLeod."

Cat's response was confused. "No," she shook her head. "I just want to know if he knows where I can find Richie." It was obvious to Nick that immortal combat was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Wait," he interjected, "who's Richie Ryan? And why aren't I just looking for him, instead of all these other names?"

Amanda gave him one of her I-will-explain-all-of-this-to-you-at-a-later-time looks, and he shrugged.

"I think maybe you'd better start from the beginning," Amanda offered.

"You don't believe me?" Cat asked.

"Let's just say I'm a little confused, and if you take it from the top, I'm less likely to stay that way." Amanda walked over and took her place in a chair, which left Nick wondering what to do next. He gave up quickly and went to his kitchenette and brought them all back a couple of drinks.

"Well, my name is Caitlin Richards," she began, accepting the glass from Nick who sat down next to her on the sofa, unable to shake the feeling that she still needed his protection from Amanda.

"To start at the beginning, my father died when I was eight, my mother had abandoned us, and I was left in the custody of my aunt, a Benedictine nun at the Sacred Heart Monastery in Richardton, North Dakota, where I lived until it was time for me to go away to college, which I did, at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods."

"In Western Indiana," Amanda offered, to Nick's surprise. "Founded in 1840 by the Sisters of Providence," she continued to showboat to Nick's greater shock. "The US's oldest Catholic liberal arts college for women." She winked in Nick's direction.

"Yes," Cat responded, delighted, but unfazed. "After school, I made my decision to also enter the order, but Mother Superior decided that to be more certain about my decision, I should go away for my postulancy."

"That's what, now, about six months-a year?" Nick rolled his eyes to Amanda's continued promptings.

Cat nodded her head. "I went to South Chicago, and served there, as well as began my year-long novitiate period. It was then I took the name Sister Mary George, and studied as well as worked in local charities, church affiliated and secular."

Nick was confused at the length of time this story was encompassing, but Amanda seemed in no mood to hurry things.

"I was getting ready to pursue a temporary commitment back with the sisters at Sacred Heart-my aunt had died during my second term at college-when I first met Richie.

"Down at one of our soup kitchens, in one of the rougher neighborhoods, I was walking to catch the El back to our house in the late evening, when a group of young guys came running around the corner and up the stairs, of the platform. At the front of them was a red-head in a black leather jacket, being chased.

"Well he was coming right for me, and I was moving to get out of his path, when just as the train is pulling in one of them pulls a gun-which I don't see right away-and shoots the red-head. I think they would have shot me too if the train hadn't arrived, and some people were around. They ran off, and instead of getting on the train I ran over to the red-head. I was calling for help, for someone to call 911.

"But when I got to him and pulled his head onto my lap, he was already gone," her brow wrinkled with the memory. "So I started saying a few prayers. When a minute or two later he opens his eyes and says, just says to me like it was a movie or something, _Hello, Angel_."

"So that's how you found out about immortals?" Nick asked, "This Richie Ryan dies in front of you and then comes back to life?" He had an uncomfortable flash of his own first time, holding Claudia and seeing Amanda rise like the dead-like the living.

"Yeah," agreed Cat, coming out of her own reverie. "So he takes me to some all-night diner and tries to explain things, but I don't so much believe him, these guys chasing him, it was a crazy sort of night.

"So we finally part ways with me agreeing not to say anything to anyone, but he must've found out about me somehow because suddenly he shows up wherever I'm volunteering, each night on that platform waiting for the El. And finally, I guess I just gave in.

Cat recalled how things had changed, how she had spent less and less time with the other sisters, less time with her prayers, more time thinking about Richie, more time with Richie, as though he was somehow able, with only his presence, to change the way she saw the world.

After a run-in with Reverend Mother about her slacking dedication she had said goodbye, taking what was officially termed a leave of absence, during which to decide whether or not she should attempt to move ahead to the perpetual commitment she had been headed for before her meeting with Richie.

To amuse himself-she thought-he had started teaching her ways to hold a sword, then basic moves. She had found it both fascinating and addictive. They were living in separate apartments at the time, but in the same building, where Richie had leased the top unfurnished warehouse-like floor in order to practice. They had spent many exciting days there, until finally, she had almost forgotten about her leave of absence, she had pushed it so far back in her mind, and they were spending so much time together they might as well have cut costs and shared rooms.

"And then, after a few months, the time finally came when someone showed up looking for Richie's head. I don't think he was anybody famous." She shrugged. "His name was Macon, a tall guy, Southern." She looked at Amanda for confirmation.

"Doesn't ring any bells," she agreed.

"And he finds me at Richie's, and pretty well gets me tied up to use as bait or something while he waits for Richie to come home. But I managed to get free, and," she didn't want to think about this part. "And I killed him."

"You mean you shot him, electrocuted him or something, right?" Amanda asked, trying to be helpful.

"No. I cut off his head," came the blunt response.

Silence.

"After that, I just couldn't-well, I had betrayed everything I thought I stood for. Everything I aspired to be. I took a life. Things changed for me."

"And then?" Nick prodded.

"A week later someone else came after Richie, one of Macon's friends, who was stronger, better, and Richie thought he'd better leave town, to protect me.

"So he left, promising to come back for me, to send word, and that was the last I heard of him."

"You're leaving something out," Amanda prompted. "When exactly in all this did you die?"

"You're saying I died?" Cat gaped. "That I'm-like one of you?" she asked, with surprise in her voice. "I-I, shortly after Richie left, I started to get sick, and eventually I went to the doctor, where after a lot of tests they told me I had inoperable cancer. I went home to the Sacred Heart, where the sisters helped me through the chemotherapy and the radiation, and nursed me with their prayers, but," she stopped, still shaking her head.

"But?"

"One night, when I was very bad, the doctors didn't think I would make it through, but I did, and when I woke up that morning, I was healed. The cancer was gone. The sisters said it was a miracle. I haven't been ill since."

"And that was what's kept you from trying to follow Richie all this time?"

"Yes, when I left the Order in Chicago, the sisters only had the address for the building where Richie and I lived. They didn't know that I'd returned to North Dakota, or under what circumstances. When they finally did find out, and they told me that he had called there looking for me. I was glad they hadn't told him where I was, or that I was sick. I couldn't bear having myself so ill and worthless in front of him. At the time it seemed for the best. It seemed," she snorted, "like the noble thing to do."

"And he was probably left thinking that you didn't want to be found, after what happened with Macon." Nick offered.

"Right," she said. "And now I'm faced with the prospect that he doesn't want to be found. He may be using an alias, still running from that other guy. That's why I thought I should try finding Duncan MacLeod, or one of the others that might know where he is. In case he's trying to protect me, you know?" She looked at Nick for an answer.

"Believe me," he threw a quasi-reproachful glance in Amanda's direction, "I know."

"All along it was Richie," Amanda said, trying to refocus. "That's why you've got those photos."

Before Cat could question Amanda's having searched her bag, Nick spoke. "Why don't you go ahead, you can use my bed tonight, and I know you must be tired with the jet lag and all. Amanda and I will snoop around, call some people. I'm sure we'll be able to pin something down by morning."

With a nod and, "sure," Amanda concurred.

Exhausted at having shared her story, overwhelmed at the news she was now immortal herself, and content with finally having found some sort of lead after such a long time, Cat gratefully agreed, smiling both her goodnights and her thanks.

* * *

As the door to Nick's bedroom shut quietly behind the retreating figure of Cat, Nick turned to Amanda, using his I-am-calling-in-your-request-to-stay-silent-and-you-would-tell-me-later raise of the eyebrows. He was answered only by the ticking of the clock. Amanda was busily studying the single photo frame on the table backing his sofa, rubbing the gunmetal finish with her thumb as if to polish it.

It was a picture of Claudia and the kids, on a day when they had gone camping. One of Claudia's rare times alone with her family, without the job getting in the way. It reminded Nick that he should call home to the States more often.

He stepped to Amanda, and took the frame from her hands, gently replacing it on the table.

"It looks like maybe you've got yourself a new student," he offered, thinking of lesson one: _take a deep breath and let the buzz settle_.

"I'm hungry," Amanda replied, seemingly deaf to his suggestion. "Let's go find something to eat."

Opening the door, she walked out of his apartment, and turned on the threshold, her eyes widening, as if to say, "Are you coming already?"

* * *

They found a small place, open for coffee, and some sort of expensive goop Amanda was enamored of that made Nick think of a poorly made cheeseball. They hadn't been seated and served for long when Amanda began to talk, to actually explain things. As far as Nick could see, all told, it had been a most unusual day.

"Richie Ryan's dead," Amanda said.

Nick was shocked, and more than a little confused. "Well, why didn't you say something back there? Why let her go on thinking we're gonna find him?"

"Because she's got a lot more to deal with, especially if she didn't know that she was immortal until I told her."

Her logic was sound, but Nick bristled at the lack of sentiment it displayed. "Why are you so suspicious of her? Is it this guy MacLeod? Who is he to you? To Richie Ryan?"

"I told you, he's the good guy, the one who gets to ride in and save the day."

"Like the one as in, _there can be only one_?"

"Maybe." She was drawing on the tablecloth with her finger, a nervous gesture he was unfamiliar with.

"So what happens if you two have to fight? If it comes down to that?"

"It's more complicated than that." She frowned at the table top.

His voice took on the edginess he felt. "Don't let it be."

"Ok, well then, I die. Happy now? He's two, three times the swordsman I am." A moment passed, Amanda looked up and changed her tone. "Nick, this whole thing is much more complex than that."

"So start explaining," he pushed, "why we've left a girl back at my place thinking there's still hope in finding Richie Ryan, when you've known all along the guy's dead."

"Ok," she exhaled. "Richie Ryan, he's the student, and friend, of Duncan MacLeod, who is my friend."

"For how long?" It was an innocent enough question.

"Nick."

"How long, Amanda?" Suspicion crept into his mind.

"We met in Italy, in sixteen thirty-something. So that's, what?"

"Three-hundred and sixty years." Nick made a note to stop asking questions whose answers could never satisfy him. "Let me guess, you picked his pocket, stole his heart?"

"Something like that." She rolled her eyes. "You happy now?"

"That's a long friendship not to have been mentioned earlier." He tried to keep that edge from coming back into his voice, but he felt a knot forming. The knot that always tied itself when Amanda referenced lengthy relationships with people past and present that he had no part in.

"Anyway. Are you taking notes? Joe Dawson? He's MacLeod's Watcher. Tessa Noel? His girlfriend, a mortal, the love of his life."

Nick's eyebrow raised skeptically in reply.

"She was killed in a mugging, which is where Richie also met his first death. Almost two years ago, Duncan killed Richie, took his head."

Stunned, Nick questioned. "I thought you said this MacLeod was the good guy?"

"He is," said Amanda.

"You're awfully accepting."

"Someday you might be glad of that," she cautioned. Shaking her head, Amanda tried to get back on topic. "No, it's, well, I wasn't there when it happened. Something was controlling Mac, he wasn't himself. I don't know the details. He disappeared for almost a year after, and well, we've never talked about it." A shrug, "it's not exactly coffee conversation. I heard the news secondhand."

"From whom?"

"Methos." _Oops_.

"So you've seen him recently?" Nick was curious.

"Well, yes, we, just," Amanda caught herself. "After the accident."

"And just how long have you known him for?" He let the accent fall heavily on _him._

"Oh no you don't." She crossed her arms. "I already gave in once tonight. What are you doing anyway, Mr. Press Pass, compiling my biography?"

"Just trying to keep the Amanda Timeline straight in my head," he joked. "Maybe you can find Methos and get him to talk to Cat then, since we can't find MacLeod."

"Methos?" she laughed, "he's impossible to find, unless he wants you to, which is never. He's the kind of person you stumble over one day on your way out to pick up the morning paper."

Nick conceded the point. "Yeah, Pierson said as much this afternoon when I asked him."

"Adam? Adam's in Paris?" Amanda was immediately interested.

"Yeah," answered Nick begrudgingly, "he's watching MacLeod's barge."

"Well then, it seems I've a social call to make." She made as though to rise, reaching for her pocketbook on the table.

"Amanda," Nick exclaimed, "it's after midnight! He wasn't even happy to have company at a decent hour this afternoon."

"Well, all the more reason to drop by," she added, though without that hint of devilry Nick had come to expect from such contrary comments.

* * *

"What about all this with Cat?" he asked, wanting to know how it was going to be handled, if as he suspected, it would all fall to him. _Well, maybe at least Liam might be some help._

"I'll let you know what I decide. You'll get the check, won't you?" she asked, not waiting for a response.

Nick didn't have to turn around when the shop's bell rang above the door. He knew she was gone.

Amanda arrived via taxi on the quai by the barge, just in time to see Methos shoving a knapsack into the back seat of another taxi. She paid her driver quickly, over-tipping him in her haste, and skipped over to the driver of the other car. She began a long, animated discussion.

Noticing her, Methos began shouting over the roof, where he had been loading another knapsack into the back seat, in preparation of adding himself.

"What's that you're saying there?" he shouted. "Stop it, Amanda, I'm in a very great hurry, here. Neither the driver nor myself has anytime to talk."

Seeing that his warnings were paid no heed, he extricated himself from the door and walked to the driver's side just in time to see Amanda handing over a great deal of money and mumbling something in French about, "for your time."

"Amanda," Methos began again, as the driver handed the first knapsack through the window to Amanda, and then the second.

"Now, look here," he went after the driver, "I'm in a..." and before he could finish, the driver gave him friendly wave, and zoomed up the street and off the quai.

"Damn you, Amanda," Methos said, as she grabbed both knapsacks, offering him one to carry. "I am in a hurry here. I have flight to catch at Orly and it will take another twenty minutes to get a taxi down here at this time of night. Not to mention the time it will take to get through customs, with all those new security measures, and me carrying a sword."

He knew it was useless to be angry with Amanda, especially when she was smiling that broad grin that showed she knew the world was her oyster, and that beauty and cunning could get you half-way to almost anywhere if you were willing to use it. And he knew that he was not immune to one-hundred percent of those charms. So he settled into a disagreeable funk instead.

"What, exactly did you say to the driver to get him to leave without giving me a second thought? A map to your rainy day jewels? Bluebeard's treasure?" Though he joked, nothing about his expression was jovial.

"Actually," she began, taking his arm and leading him back to the barge. "I told him that you were my husband, and you were leaving me tonight for your mistress." She smiled even more broadly. "But that I had some _special news_," she patted her flat stomach knowingly. "That I was pretty sure would change your mind, if only I had the chance to get you alone."

"And he bought that? You being a wife? And in the family way?" He sized her up, the short, too-short skirt, heels, the whole fashion-plateness of her. "The mistress-maybe. Besides," shaking himself out of their repartee, "I'm very angry with you right now. You can come in and sit down, but only until the cab arrives. And you'll pay the extra fare as well. You pull another stunt like that and,"

"Right." Amanda agreed.

When they were settled in the barge and Methos had made his call for another taxi, and Amanda had caught Methos up to speed about Cat's background and her current location asleep back at the club, she was still unable to persuade him that he didn't have to leave town.

"So why are you here? Why come find me?" he asked, unsatisfied that she had only stopped in to give him the latest dish.

"You know, Methos," she began, "I don't know what the world was like when you started out, probably can't even imagine it so well, but when I lived, well..." she trailed off.

He didn't speak, but waited for her to continue while he looked through the porthole, anticipating the arriving cab.

"Mortal love is different. There's something else there. That's what I know. It's different for them. Immortals that have had it, they will tell you that's the truth."

"Immortals that have had it?" He leaned away from the porthole, his back to the wall, his arms crossed skeptically.

"Well," she said, "I don't know, things were different then. For me, that was something I never got."

He was interested now, though he didn't come away from his place at the wall. "Never?"

"No," she replied. "I didn't know what love was, much less being in love, until I met Rebecca and even then it took decades to understand."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, bordering on derisive. "Why aren't you telling the girl, or Nick, even. I'm sure Nick would enjoy a little walk down memory lane."

"I'm just saying that love between mortals is different, that's all."

"Would you do anything for someone who loved you, Amanda?"

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, I dunno, try and kill Luther for taking Rebecca's head? Break Kalas out of prison to get him out of the way for MacLeod? Maybe try to straighten out Richie's death with his girlfriend, maybe, maybe lose your head in the process? Is love that valuable to you?" He turned back to the porthole, hoping he would catch a reflection of headlights, "Would you die for love?"

"What I would do," she responded evenly, "is ask you to come and tell Cat about what happened, explain how it was. To honor the memory of anyone you ever loved when you were mortal. That's all."

"No," he said, getting angry. He should have realized her lack of pretense had meant she needed him pliable for a really large favor. "No, no, non, nyet, nine," he muttered on in languages both alive and dead. "What do you want from me, Amanda, really? Am I hearing you right? You want me to put my neck on the line, literally. Risk my head to," he stuttered, "to do _a favor_ by proxy for MacLeod, who's not even present?"

She pressed her lips together, raising her eyebrows hopefully. "You should talk to her. Someone should talk to her. Someone who was there."

"You think we owe that to her?" indignantly, almost sneering. "Who is she that we should owe her? Who? She's nobody, Amanda. And if you would leave this alone, she'd remain that way." He began pacing, deliberately, stopping to arrange things that did not suit him. A vase, a glass, the angle of the chessboard on the table.

"Methos, you know it's not that simple. Even _I_ know it's not that simple. Don't split hairs with semantics. _Owe, a debt_. It's an old trick, and I've cured myself from falling for it-although I will be the first to admit that it can be very charming and moody in other circumstances."

"I didn't get involved in this mess when Richie was killed, and I surely am not getting involved in this now that there's an angry lover left behind carrying a sword." He had his hand on the bar, turning now to face her. "So step out of my way, Amanda, so I can get my things and quietly exit the stage. I've had quite enough of your little tragedy."

Methos had turned back around, and begun to walk up into the bedroom. Her voice called him to pause.

"I don't have a problem with your saying no, Methos. I can handle this by myself, I really can. I was simply extending to you the chance to be part of things. To own up to the fact that things were let pass a little too easily. I mean, did you guys ever even stop and consider that there might be someone out there interested in Richie? Did anyone make inquiries after the fact? Or were we all just focused on MacLeod? Too full of wondering where he had gone? Dammit Methos, did you even go to Richie's funeral? His whole life he was eclipsed by someone else, and I'm sorry if the," she threw her hands up, "the messier aspects of his death keep you from seeing things clearly, but this is a chance for you to set it right. It's an opportunity."

Methos did not move, nor did he reply. The noise of a passing boat's motor filled the silence, and made the barge rock gently.

"Take a day or two and think about it." Amanda extended the offer, not expecting the answer she wanted if she rushed him. "If you still decide you have to leave town, it's your business."

"The eleventh century," he said, referencing the last time he had felt guilt.

"So you say," she responded, as obliquely as he. "The offer's on the table."

With a heavy, uninterpretable sigh, he walked off.

And Amanda let herself out.

* * *

When she arrived back at the club, she managed to get past Nick lying asleep on his couch without waking him-always the knight on duty-walking down the short hall and into the bedroom, where she was met by an agitated gasp from the no-longer-sleeping occupant of the bed.

"It's okay," Amanda counseled. "It's me. We've got some things to talk about." And she told her, very succinctly what she knew. That Richie was dead, that she had gone to see someone in the hopes of getting the whole story for her. That after two years her search and fear could be over.

Amanda haphazardly tried to weigh the balance by adding at the end, "but you have new concerns now, and much to learn."

No response was forthcoming. Cat just stared, blinking more than the moonlight coming in through the window demanded. She struggled to speak, "I-I-I...it...oh." And then gasped for air.

Amanda hoped she would not make enough noise to wake the sleeping Nick. The fewer people around to witness such a moment the better.

Cat began sobbing soon after, but quietly, without wailing, and frightened Amanda over how she remained so still, sitting up, tangled in the bedclothes, barely rocking back and forth.

Amanda mumbled words of comfort, her voice morphing back to the accent she was born with nine-hundred odd years ago, and she moved from the edge of the bed to the center, climbing in and taking Cat in her arms, letting her weep into her shoulder, her hands grasp at her clothes, which only several hours ago she would have been upset to find wrinkled.

After awhile, Amanda began reciting Hail Marys, and Our Fathers-any prayers she could remember-memories of a long time past when she had felt desolated over the loss of an unrequited love, a loss that now seemed somewhat pale in her mind.

The rhythm and familiarity of the words seemed to center Cat, who would weep again from time to time, as they passed the night together.

* * *

Nick waited until after ten that morning, calling Amanda's rooms several times and getting no answer. Angry with her for deserting, he gave up on expecting her to arrive, and after his shower, went back to his room to tell Cat everything he had learned about Richie Ryan. He was tired of Amanda bailing. He was up to taking the responsibility. And if he'd known where that immortal was, he'd have been glad to provide her with Duncan MacLeod's address.

His surprise was all encompassing when he opened the door to the bedroom and was met with a vision, one that for certain reasons he did not allow himself to dwell on for very long, at least not immediately.

There on his bed, against the white cotton sheets, laid out like two slumbering enchanted princesses, were Cat and Amanda, asleep in one another's embrace, Amanda's pocketbook still resting on the front corner of the bed where she had left it coming in, Amanda still in her dress and nylons from the night before, their feet among the pillow-strewn top of the mattress, their heads near the footboard.

A closer inspection showed him Cat's tear-swollen eyes, her hands clutching a rosary. Amanda had told her. Nick asked forgiveness for having thought otherwise.

He cleared his throat lightly. "Ladies?"

They stirred. Amanda rolled over, away from Cat, away from the light, leaving a small mascara mark against the sheet where her eye had been. He should have known better than to think she would get up yet. Oh well, Amanda in his bed. Something to think about at another time. He thought of the sheets smelling of her perfume.

Cat, however, moved to the opposite side, sliding off the high mattress, and walked toward him. They left the room and he shut the door quietly behind them.

He saw the indentations on her hands from the rosary, which she had left inside.

"So she told you," he asked.

A nod. "She said she went last night to talk to someone about what happened, to get them to talk to me."

"She went to see Pierson," Nick began, pouring them some coffee, "but Methos was..."

It hit him like a brick in the head. _Pierson and Methos, God what a trick he's been pulling on you, Nicky_. Why hadn't Amanda told him? Well, it hadn't been her secret to tell, he guessed. He chalked up one more reason to feel unpleasant around the guy. He didn't like being duped.

"Yeah," he said, "she went to see Methos, a guy that was there." He winced, wishing for some of Liam's ability at finding the right words.

"I'm sorry," he said, still holding the coffee pot. He set it down and moved to her side, putting his arms around her. She was thin and light, and he felt her breath come quickly as he held her to him for a moment.

She pulled away deliberately. "I can't do this right now," she said. "I have to...think. And if I'm crying I'm not thinking." So she took his hands off her shoulders, and went to shower.

When she returned, dressed and ready to go out, she asked, "You're a detective, Nick, where is he?"

Nick knew without asking that she meant Methos. "Well, he's either already left town on a long holiday, or else he's at the cemetery, trying to sort things out."

"Thanks," she said quietly, as she grabbed up her jacket on her way to the door.

Nick heard the tinny whisper of the sword he now knew she carried, and shivered at how familiar the sound was becoming.

* * *

Methos was glad that Joe had bought a secluded spot, near the bench of another monument, where he could sit underneath the shade of a tree. It was almost pleasant, park-like.

__

Richie Ryan, A Friend. The black marble headstone put him in the mind of Alexa. Her monument also of black marble: _Alexa Bond Beloved_. Why had it never occurred to any of them that it was possible Richie had a right to such a distinction as well?

Methos knew the others were not so much to blame. That Joe was near catatonic for awhile, especially after Mac disappeared, and would have taken a leave of absence from the Watchers had he not needed their resources in his desperate search for him. And Mac, blown apart, as though the Quickening had physically ripped him in two, was simply not left with the faculties to deal.

But himself, well, he couldn't so easily talk that away. He had been surprised, surely, and disappointed, stunned-he could think of an endless array of adjectives, but no way to really encapsulate what he had felt in that moment when he realized what had happened. Methos did not often surprise himself, but he found that now, he did indeed feel a dissatisfaction about his running from the scene.

He had gone away, disappeared, as well leaving Joe alone to deal with the aftermath. Ran out when of all of them, he had been the least close to Richie, the one that should've had the clearest head, the one best equipped to function. He did not enjoy finding things within himself to dislike. He usually avoided that possibility quite easily, by not allowing or permitting himself to be put on the spot in such a way. He knew the issue was much more complex than he was letting it be right now, but he also knew that Amanda was right, there was something about what had happened that had left him with the foulest taste. A taste he had ignored ever since. Perhaps what she was extending was an opportunity after all. An opportunity to look at that segment of his life without looking away.

He felt a Buzz, ringing in his ears. It was not-never was anymore-a welcome sound. It put him in an immediate distemper.

"Amanda?" he called, his mood ready to turn worse if she in fact had followed him here. He was in no mood to be badgered, especially if he were planning to concede.

__

No response. Not Amanda. Well, holy ground, at least.

"Who's there?" he asked, taking the long shot. "MacLeod?"

"The name's Cat." A young woman stepped out from behind a nearby tree.

"How did you know to find me here?" His eyes narrowed, dark and unwelcoming.

Her head tilted barely to the side, as if dismissing the question. "Let's call it a tip."

She stood, hands jammed into the pockets of a beat-up black leather jacket. He could see the hilt of her sword straining through the leather where it was not so well concealed. He recognized the shape, and his mind cataloged the make all but unconsciously. _Thomas Leech and Company, Memphis Novelty Works. The grip would be wooden, with leather cording, a Confederate Civil War Sword._ If she had the scabbard with it, around eight-thousand American dollars-if she could find a good buyer. He wondered where she'd come across it. Perhaps taken it from that guy Macon Amanda mentioned the night before.

"So this is it?" she asked, standing at the foot of the plot, facing the marker.

"You haven't been yet?" He asked, knowing they sounded like two people having cocktails, benignly discussing an unexciting art exhibition. He had not moved from his concrete bench.

"I know you're very old," she said. "He told me you were the oldest one."

Methos had no reply. When he wasn't concentrating he found the name on the stone in front of him morphing uncomfortably into Alexa's name. In the passing silence, Cat still did not look at him, or disrupt his thoughts, and he found himself thinking of what would have happened had he not returned home one day.

He had never told Alexa about his immortality-it had seemed grotesque in light of her suffering. If one night he had left the hospital and not come back the next day, due either to defeat or the necessity of fleeing an opponent, who would have told her? Would she simply have lain there, wondering, fearing, what had happened to him? Believing he'd abandoned her?

The thought touched a contrary part of him. He felt like something was manipulating him and he realized it was thoughts of humanity. "People die, you know." It came out harshly, and he turned his face away after having said it, ashamed but defiant.

"Yes," she said, steadily.

"I can't give you what you want, you know. No stories of gallantry or chivalry, the comfort of knowing he died for something bigger than himself, something noble. Because he didn't, he died for nothing. Nothing."

"I know," she said.

Methos pushed harder. "I don't know why you came here, why everyone wants to drag me in to getting involved with this. I did not want to be part of it at the beginning, and I have no intention of signing up for the refresher course."

He made as if to stand and leave. But he did not leave. He quit looking at the morphing stone, focusing instead on the crest of her sword's hilt, like the beginning of a dowager's hump.

"I know you can't give me what I need," she said. "That you can't tell me what my mind wants to hear. Whether he suffered, whether he knew what was going on. What his final thoughts were. I'm not asking for that, for some Heart of Darkness moment, when you lie to make me feel better, tell me his last words were my name, that he died a noble death. I know all of those things aren't true. They're only constructs we employ to cover things up, to cope. That's not it."

She walked over beyond him a little, her back to him, looking off into the distance of the cemetery. Leaving in his view only the black marble.

"Richie's already passed," she said, "but I need to pass to. To pass beyond where I am. You see, it's as real as if he's out there right now, waiting for me in the taxi. And when I go back, he'll laugh, and ask about how you're doing, what we said, if you made me laugh, and then he'll smile. That smile-you know the one-where his eyes get little wrinkles around them, and if you look into them it seems that nothing has ever touched him, ever hurt or damaged him in a way that he can't experience joy. Complete joy untainted by anything. It's like something pure, like the sun just comes unfiltered through his eyes."

She paused, and Methos waited. He found he had nothing to say.

"I don't have any of his things," she said. "I've got this old pair of jeans, and this coat he left behind, and I've got him. But the thing is, as long as I've got him, living, growing, alive inside me, I can't pass over. I can't put anything there in that place. I've got no room. So I need to take that part of my heart out, and let it die, because he's not coming back, and I can't go on waiting. It's like my mother, even though I don't know where she is, don't know if she's living or dead, anything. I-I still expect her. To show up announcing herself, to send a card on my birthday. She's still out there for me. But I can live with that, I've had time to live with that. But I can't hold on to this now, now that I realize I've got-infinity. I need to pass Richie into another space. I need you to help me do that. To make him a memory, not this living, real...that's what I need."

He turned, and surprising himself, extended his hand, palm down to her turned back. Slowly and deliberately looking back over his shoulder, he turned the palm up, and the rustle of his coat made her turn around and seeing it, she put her hand in his. Although she made no attempt to sniffle or wipe her face, tears ran down both cheeks, her eyes wide with the effort.

"You can't be profoundly sad forever," he said in his way to comfort her, "it's a statistical improbability."

And then he told her everything about Richie's death, as he remembered it. The shock, the unvarnished horror. All the while thinking of Alexa, thinking how strange the things he'd done, and would do, in the name of love.

* * *

"You want to know what I think," Methos said, a half-hour and some silence later, "about where he is now."

"Well, yes," she responded.

"From what I understand," he said. "For immortals, whatever there was of Richie, his abilities, his knowledge, that particular light you claimed for his eyes, that all lies now within Duncan MacLeod. Until whatever comes."

* * *

When Nick was on the force in Torago, funerals had been a basic part of the job. A cop was killed, you showed up in uniform as support. Sometimes you didn't even know the guy. But it felt odd to be walking across the cemetery rows now, in Paris, on his way to a long-delayed funeral for someone he had never met. His skin seemed to notice the lack of a uniform today, and bristled against the good black suit whose tailor Amanda had recommended.

Nick mused a little over the idea of a funeral for an immortal. He wondered if it was the norm, or if the Watchers just dragged the bodies off and dumped them in shallow graves. He had heard Amanda speak of Rebecca. He knew she was buried in a proper cemetery, and at least Joe Dawson had put Richie here.

Hearing the bells of the nearby cathedral, he knew he was now officially late. He could see them all gathered further up, lining the plot; Liam in his vestments; Amanda in one of those big hats that reminded him of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cat, and Pierson/Methos. He was surprised to see him here at all.

Nick was late because he'd had somewhere to stop off first, an old plot in the more populated part of the cemetery. The grave of Tessa Noel, Duncan MacLeod's mortal lover.

He couldn't say for sure-at least not out loud, and definitely not to anyone else-what had made him want to go there, to see that spot. The cold hard stone after-the-fact-ness of the place. A feeling of solidarity, maybe. A little shot of mortality before he went over to join a group of people who could live forever, commemorating one who hadn't survived.

They were singing a chant, something very old, in Latin. It came to him across the grass. _Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus dominus Deus sabbaoth_. They were all singing, even Pierson. Nick wondered if one day they'd be gathered together like this for Cat's funeral, how long she would last as an immortal. And then he made the leap to his own funeral. Something he did not allow himself the luxury of visiting. It was almost as though he attended it today. He wondered if they would all come to stand by his grave, ever-perfect and unaging. He wondered if they'd come together then-even Pierson. If he'd be that lucky.

He caught a glimpse of the rose in Amanda's gloved hand and her hat brim raised as she saw him walk up, a look of pleasure at seeing he'd come after all.

Humming the bass harmony as best he could remember it, he took his place next to Cat and joined the others.

__

* * *

The End  
051899

* * *

**Story Disclaimer:  
Timeline::** Sometime before The Raven episode _The Ex-Files_ I don't need Nick ripped up about Lauren during the ensuing action. Also after Nick's rocky-at-best meeting with Joe Dawson in the Raven's first season (_A Matter of Time_). It also references my own previous Raven fiction On A Clear Day You Can Live Forever. Per that story, Nick has met Methos under the guise of Adam Pierson, but has no idea as to his true identity. Knowledge of the events in Highlander: The Series episodes _Archangel_ and the opening of _Avatar _would be good to have. I finished this before the series finale of The Raven airs, so anything revealed therein is **not** addressed in this story.

****

Setting:: I've had Amanda set up shop in the Huit (8th) Arrondisement (like a borough in NYC), a very fashionable area north and west from Notre Dame, and a place much more likely (according to my Frommer's _Paris_) to have a successful club. My apologies to anyone this might upset, continuity-wise, when I talk about traveling across town to get to Notre Dame. Putting Sanctuary within throwing distance of where the barge would be docked is uncomfortable for me.

****

Epigraph:: A song from the _Fly Away Home_ movie soundtrack, sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter at the film's beginning. (Also available on her 2000 Greatest Hits CD "Party Doll.") I couldn't get the haunting lyric and melody out of my head.  
Another song that played in my mind was Sara Evans' _No Place That Far_, with the chorus, "_If I had to run,/ if I had to crawl,/ If I had to swim a hundred rivers,/ Just to climb a thousand walls,/ Always know that I would find a way to get to where you are,/ There's no place that far._

****

Characters:: Well, we got some characters here. Amanda, Nick, et al, belong to Gaumont/Panzer-Davis. Caitlin Richards is mine alone. And a word about Methos. In The Complete Watcher's Guide Peter Wingfield said, "When it comes down to it, Methos wants his own show. I am aware of it. I am aware of how strong his desire for his own show is." With that said, _I _am aware of how strong Methos' desire for his own story is. It seems impossible to leave him out, because he just keeps popping up. And, well it's best to let him have his way.

****

Thanks:: I would like to thank my beta-reader Yakut, who is infinitely patient, particularly with my chronic use of sentence fragments, and whose accusation about not giving enough credit to Amanda was some of the most astute judgment I've ever had. She has requested a comedy next time. Also, thanks to Alice in Stonyland, whose snippet of backstory about Amanda joining holy orders is referenced *very gently and discreetly* with all reverence for the great Alice. For more information about it, read her story Heart Without a Past. The Benedictine Sisters' Sacred Heart Monastery in Richardton, North Dakota, and Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods are both real places, check them out on the web.


End file.
